The Land Of K.: January 2015

4

09:07

Gemma remembered that day pretty well. In the morning she was spending the time in the yard with her friends, throwing a ball they made from two worn out shoes. Then she ate a bowl of soup with two slices of bread and run around the town for a while. When she came back to their room, Maria said that she had to wash herself as someone wanted to see her in the evening. Gemma felt that it was going to be a serious event. She was sure that the day of her wedding approached. She had heard about it from older women. Sometimes men would choose a girl from the village and they were able to pay for her to the owner of the building she inhabited. Those married girls were usually good-looking girls. And those men were usually men from N. Girls were married, transported to N. and from that time they have never been seen again.

People said that it was better than to be caught and transferred on those big trains to the final destination. And Gemma from time to time could see those trains moving slowly from the station nearby her town. Trains were full of people. And as far as she didn't like Maria and other girls that much, she was sure she wouldn't like to be on that train.

There were some people who told her that she was pretty. Sometimes kids bullied her for that, some older boys tried to rape her, but she was fast and strong and the boys were left with bruises. Or they were lying with their noses broken and trousers pulled down above ankles. Gemma was a genuine K. citizen and she knew how to survive. She could bite, kick, punch and throw a grown man on the ground.

She didn't know her parents, but she noticed that the man from the building two blocks away had very similar teeth and a woman from a nearby village owned the same blond and straight hair. There was never any certainty. Gemma thought that if she had a child, she would at least have guts to introduce herself to her progeny, but that in K. wasn't a custom. So what all the children of K. could do was to suspect potential familiarly looking people to be the benefactors of their genes. There were no proofs whatsoever. Gemma was sure that even Maria suspected some of the girls she was living with to be her own children but, as she couldn't be sure, she didn't say anything. Kids were left to their own devices. They were born, fed for some time by mothers or some women who could feed them at that time and, as soon as they were able to walk and eat on their own, they were left to themselves.

One day when Gemma was six years an old woman approached her and, probably due to her looks, said something prophetic.

'You will get married'.

And Gemma believed in her words and treated them as if they had been spoken by God. As God in K. was also absent, she treated them as something of a rare value. That's why she was so hostile towards the boys, even though her friends had sex many times. She wanted to keep herself in the best possible condition as long as possible. For that, she was also bullied.

Maria surprised her that day. Gemma wasn't aware that it was going to happen so soon. She was twelve and she had just started developing breasts. She was utterly taken aback and didn't really know what to do.

She washed thoroughly. Even the hair. She didn't leave any place out as she was used to, in spite of Fiona's continuous moaning that she stunk. She cleaned her navel, toes, and ears. From Maria, she got a pair of too big shoes, a dress, and a coat. All the things other girls got when they were sixteen and boys when they were eighteen. Normally she would have to wait years to receive such a treatment. All in all, Gemma felt special.

She sat obediently on the chair next to the window and looked at her bed. She used to sleep on a pile of old blankets with Sylvia, Rebeka, Julia, and Fiona. The blankets next to the table were taken by five other girls. Remaining rugs were rolled and hidden in a small space under the bench and were made only when the night approached. Twenty-five girls were living in the room with Maria as their guardian, since none of the girls was even close to her 13th birthday and communally they once decided that it is safer than living with old men and boys as none of the girls had any family left.

As soon as Gemma started to get bored, Maria entered the room and told Gemma to wait. Five minutes passed and an old man came in with her.

Gemma couldn't help herself. Not only was he old, but he was also ugly and disgusting! The possibility of marrying this old man and sharing the bed with him was unthinkable. He could have been her grandpa! And he didn't even look like those people in N. He was simply plain.

'She looks weird,' said the man 'Is this her usual expression?'

Maria gave her the same look she would give to her when Gemma was taking Fiona's share of blanket and Fiona started complaining. It was a form of bringing up or introducing discipline on Maria's part. Maria didn't do much but with one look she could make them act obediently. She was able to manage the room and keep the girls quiet at night and the landlord was happy. Gemma tried to hide her feelings and look unmoved.

The man approached her and inspected her carefully.

'Stand up,' he said 'I want to look at you'

Gemma stood up.

'Take off your clothes,' he ordered firmly.

Gemma opened her eyes widely. Was she to undress in front of that old man? Was he going to test her in front of Maria?

'Don't worry. He won't hurt you,' Maria wanted to sooth her.

Oh, but Maria was so naive. She pretended that she didn't know about anything when Rebeka stayed out late at night and didn't come back for supper. She didn't know what men were doing to girls. And Rebeka loved it. She said that it was better than a massage and she highly recommended it to anyone in need of relaxation. Of course, it made you tired but that lovely feeling of tiredness couldn't be compared to being tired after a good run. But with that man, it wouldn't be even close to relaxation. Gemma would rather throw up than relax clinging to that old wrinkled body.

'I think she comes up to my expectations,' he said finally ' She will grow, of course. And probably get more beautiful. You told me that her teeth are healthy? Is that true?'

Maria nodded and encouraged him to look into her mouth. And Gemma felt even more desperate when the old man was looking at her teeth, searching for the cavity. Gemma knew she had nice teeth. Sylvia had something black on her front tooth and looked ugly when she smiled. Gemma's teeth weren't even curved.

And then the man sealed the deal. He told Gemma to bring all her belongings, which was about what she had got from Maria not so long before and told her to follow him.

'Aren't we taking a train to N.?' Gemma was anxious with anticipation of her future life.

'No. We're staying in K.,' answered the old man.

Gemma was disappointed. She was expecting N. to be her next stop.

'So where are we going?'

'Dear girl, we have just an hour walk to my place, be patient. But before that, there is something I would like you to do for me. Can you climb?'

Gemma's face gave the same expression that she was unintentionally giving the old man when she saw him for the first time.

And, ignoring her womanly dignity, the next minute she was climbing one big tree and trying to take down a suitcase which was hanging on its branch.

'Thank you,' the man said happily, taking his lost property from her 'I wouldn't do that myself, you see.'

'I can see', she said indifferently, wondering what she was going to do for him in the future. She didn't ask any questions. She was still analyzing in her head what, according to the women she spoke to, this marriage was really about.

And then they approached the house. It looked like one of the houses she was living for many years. It was quite old, yellowish from the burning sun, with some of the windows torn and some of the walls falling apart. Other than that, it looked fine.

'This is my house,' said the man with an enthusiasm of a circus host.

'Which part?'

'The whole of it,'

Gemma whistled.

'You must be kidding,'

'Not in the least. It's mine. You can pick your room!'

Gemma couldn't pretend that she wasn't impressed.

'Can I go in?'

The old man nodded and Gemma stormed the house. She ran into every room like a person winning a lottery ticket, trying to be quick to make a decision, as if the gift had been only temporary. And after a quarter of an hour of running, she chose a room. It was the one on the second floor with a big window overlooking the fields. Under the window, there was a bed. It was a big, wooden, comfortable bed on which you could lie and sleep and eat your meals, or lie and dream all day long, and who knew what else. On the floor, there was a red carpet. There was also a table on the left and, beside the table, there were two chairs, both a bit dusted but in reasonably in good condition. By the wall there stood a big wardrobe full of masculine clothes. Gemma on one or two occasions visited the rooms in which some adult people lived but never in her life had she seen a luxury of that scope. The room was huge. It was almost as big as the one she was sleeping in just today morning. It would fit at least twenty people.

'Is it for me? I mean is it only for myself?'

'Yes. It once belonged to my brother. I'm not planning to take in anyone else yet. I hope I will be happy with what you have to offer,'

Gemma remembered women's words about the expected obedience to the future husband. She looked at the room with full comprehension of the deal she was a part of. K. was also a part of such a deal. Nothing in the world was free and there were serious consequences for her as well. This was clear to her. She would have to pay for that room. She started taking off her clothes.

'I understand. It's a great room. I couldn't have been luckier. You can sleep with me.'

The old man laughed and shied away from her half naked body.

'God forbid! Put on your clothes! Sleep with whoever you like, girl! It's the last thing I'm going to do with you.'

'Then what are you going to do with me?'' Gemma stood there half-shocked and half-dressed.

'I have a plan, but I cannot tell you anything yet. You're too young and I don't know if it can be carried out. I can't be sure about anything. But now, enjoy yourself, sleep, eat, grow. I need you as an adult, so you still have some time. I hope you will grow pretty.'

'What's your name?'

'Melquiades.'

'Fine, Melquiades,' she said regaining her womanly pride she was working on these days 'For that room I can at least cook for you.'

Melquiades smiled.

'That would be more than enough'.

Gemma wasn't a great cook. She knew that Sylvia could do that way better. Her soups were fine, her steamed vegetables tasty, but not as tasty as Maria's. She knew that her looks were a compensation for the lack of talent in the field of cooking. One girl said, while tasting her mashed potatoes, that three-year-olds could cook something like this with more grace, which was a serious insult to every woman in K. Gemma didn't care. Food. As if there wasn't anything else to this life. They traded their mates for food. This overall obsession with food started to get on her nerves.

But this old man seemed to be content with her cooking, he praised her, he didn't compare her to other cooks, he didn't recall other dishes he had tried in the past and he was happy. This marriage wasn't such a bad thing after all. She had her own room. She could sleep soundly in her own bed. She sat by the table and did some drawing with the crayons she found in the wardrobe. She also used the clothes she had found there and very selfishly, for the first time in her life, she changed her outfit every day.

'You look like my brother,' Melquiades laughed when she walked through the house wearing black trousers and white shirts with her long blond hair hanging loosely from her head and a hat on top of her head. She was playing with what Melquiades called fashion and he told her that she looked like a little teenage model.

Gemma didn't know what these models were doing but it wasn't anything mean on Melquiades' part. He was paying her compliments.

One day he sat next to her by the table and opened something that looked like a small pavement's brick.

'It's a book,' he explained 'I want you to be able to read.'

So Gemma started to learn the letters and put those letters together to form whole words. Then she was able to read full sentences. It was hard work. It was harder than cooking and harder than avoiding being raped. Sometimes it was funny, especially when sentences she was reading were funny. Every day they would sit for a couple of hours and she would read aloud until she understood everything she was reading. When Melquiades was sure that she could read proficiently he gave her books to read on her own: books on history, biology, geography. So Gemma learned about other countries and about animals. She had never seen animals in her life. She had never seen a bird, even though there were some birds in K., as old men were saying. They came some time after that past legendary disaster they always wanted to talk about, but couldn't. She saw pictures of those animals and she was truly amazed by their diversity, colors, and shapes. They were nothing like humans, but they also had two eyes, two ears, and legs. Usually more than two. She laughed for twenty minutes when Melquiades told her that hens laid eggs and that people sometimes ate those eggs. She couldn't even grasp the fact that humans ate those big black and white cows and made slices of meat and put those slices between two buns and called them burgers. But, finally, she was shocked at the perspective of killing a bird, cutting its head and taking all its feathers and putting it in the oven, baking it and eating with a salad and potatoes. Melquiades said that it was delicious. And there was something like Kentucky Fried Chicken which he particularly enjoyed when he was abroad.

Gemma used to like talks about abroad and liked it when he talked about fashion and about coffee. Gemma loved the stories about the movies. You could go to a big room and see people kissing and dancing and even making love on a big colorful screen. It made Melquiades blush, but Gemma was so eager to see two people making love and she was asking more and more questions about it that he finally gave her a book on human sexuality. She was happy but she didn't cook for him for two days because she was still reading and, when she finally came downstairs, she said that he should check on his prostate since he was aging rapidly and regular check-ups should be on his mind on a daily basis. She knew it all and with a vocation of a missionary, she wanted to tell anyone willing to listen.

Then Melquiades gave her books on languages and they were learning some new ones in case she would need them in the future.

'I like being married to you,' she said during her second year in the house 'It's really pleasant.'

'We're not married,' Melquiades laughed 'I'm only taking care of you. I need you for something, but you can marry whoever you want. After your mission is complete, you can be free. You can go.'

And Gemma was really disappointed again. She didn't want to be married for a while. She wanted to be married forever. Wasn't that the reason she was avoiding boys to be married to one worthy the deal? Melquiades had given her hope. And then he took it away from her. She was to complete his plan and later on be disposed of like an unwanted wife. Gemma assumed that after her stay at his place he was going to take another girl, he would teach her how to read, how to speak foreign words and how to dress like a man. And then he was to take another one. And another. Probably until he would die. And from that day she even didn't care what she was cooking. She wasn't a good cook and Melquiades really deserved the inadequate quality of meals she was serving him three times a day. And from time to time she literally made him constipated, bloated or caused some mild diarrhea. But as she wasn't to stay there forever, she had to build a life for herself.

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11:25

Melquiades was about thirteen years old when his father noticed something strange in the fields. Two foxes were lying dead with their eyes wide open and claws spread like having undergone some serious electric shock. Next were the cows. One after another they suddenly stopped drinking water, their tongues turned purple, eyes - grayish and the whole physique changed into what would be more expected of starving horses in the battlefield. Within a week they lost the family’s only source of milk. Melquiades’ father in any other circumstances would have been broken down – a farm man, a lover of soil, a true follower of tradition – he would have been traumatized after losing a significant part of his rural inheritance. His own father was a farmer and so was his grandfather. Sometimes they would laugh that even ten generations before they were working on the farm and if there had been any Adam indeed, the first man on earth, he must have been a farmer.
Now things seemed more than strange. People started talking. And if people are talking, there must be some agenda. They whispered to each other at markets, while hanging their laundry or baking bread, they said that something wasn't right, that such accidents hadn't happened before.

Cows were just the sign of things to come. The father wasn't the type to react emotionally at the accidents that contaminated his life. He decided to be quiet and keep his emotions at bay for the time being. Before he was to do anything, he wanted to wait.

Not only did Melquiades’ father lose all his animals: three cows, seven pigs, twenty hens and a horse, but also the same thing happened to his neighbors and people from distant villages. The country was in a permanent state of shock. Within a year ninety-nine per cent of domestic and farm animals were dead. Smultaneously, the same tragedy happened to the untamed. Wolves, foxes, bears, and beavers were found everywhere spread around woods like grated cheese on a plate of spaghetti. The stench was unbearable. Zoo workers weren’t fast enough to bury the corpses of tigers, leopards, elephants, and zebras which occupied their silent stalls in a form of creepy exhibition. It was happening so quickly that no one knew how to react and what to think. Some claimed that it was a virus, some suspected a poison in the food, water or air, great believers in the power of God were sure that due to the sinfulness of K. God sent another plague and people were next to go. There was no time to discuss it properly since all day long citizens had to bury corpses to escape from the unbearable odor which filled the air around villages and cities of K. People weren’t next to go. Next were the politics.

The general panic couldn’t have been missed by local authorities. They did everything to calm the terrified citizens down, they printed leaflets about the undoubted temporariness of such a tragedy, made sure that proper medical tests were conducted and the cure for these unexpected deaths was to be found soon enough. Enough was not enough. The most recent newspapers were full of gloomy prophetic visions of the fall of the civilization, brought to mind epidemics of cholera, black death, and typhus. In fact, K. would have felt far worse if a recent epidemic of Spanish flu hadn’t hit Europe with a force of mass annihilation. To make matters worse people didn’t know at that time that mass annihilation could be executed on a human race at all. For the time being, they could have only predicted.

K. was lost and vulnerable. Neighboring countries were terrified as well and ducked from any help, support and shared responsibility. They were glad that the tragedy hadn't happened to their beloved pets. Three countries in the north, west, and southeast of K. were less than optimistic when the news about the rapid extinction of the animal kind spread like wildfire through the complex grapevine of their local newspapers. And when it came to maintaining any business contacts with K., they were shockingly radical. Ignoring political correctness and the warm memories of their long and stable business relationships, they shut all the borders, cut short the import-export deals they had started decades before and turned a blind eye to K.’s tragedy. K., as a victim of recent events, was shocked even more. As if the total extinction of the animal kind hadn’t been enough, within a month the country became an isolated island in the ocean of land.

Melquiades was reading leaflet after leaflet, newspaper after newspaper and was terrified. The boyish dreams of a relaxing summer, leisurely walks with friends in the nearby park or his all too problematic shyness in front of girls were pushed aside by major political problem of his motherland. He stopped quarreling with his brother, he stopped moaning about his father’s narrow-mindedness. He kept reading and tried not to make himself cry due to what was happening before his eyes, which act of desperation he considered unmanly and weak. The feeling of hopelessness started to be felt in the smallest drop of rain that fell on K.’s ground.

‘Why cannot they help us? It’s not our fault that they are dead. Why do they act as if we were the threat?,’ he asked his father, ‘We signed treaties worth millions, helped them in their past conflicts, provided food… What is going to happen to this country?’

His father was drunk. He decided that it was the right time to open the seventeen bottles of wine he stored for some other more jubilant occasion. He drank bottle after bottle and the current one was only the fifth in the row.

‘Suppose they don’t want the same thing to happen to them. Imagine, a country without animals! It must have hit us! We’re cursed for ever!’

He opened the sixth bottle of wine and went outdoors to look for Melquiades' older brother who went running with his friends. Possibly he was afraid that he would find his firstborn with his eyes wide open and his fingers spread in the welcoming of death. Just like he had found the foxes.

Only a few days passed after the last corpse of a dead dog was put into the ground and covered with warm soil. People, as very flexible and adjustable species, tried to deal with new circumstances. It was summer. Sun was shining beautifully, crops were abundant and Melquiades’ father became all of a sudden a rich man. The price of wheat was four times as high as before the tragedy. People needed food and with no milk, eggs, meat and other dairy products, they were left with fruit and vegetables. Bread was no longer a staple food, it was a must. Potatoes were cooked, boiled, baked, fried, stirred, grated as never before as the whole nation needed to be fed, nourished and, maybe less importantly, not tired of the flavor of the food they were eating. With almost 400 square kilometers, three main rivers, and still developing methods of agriculture farmers were able to feed the twenty million's population of K.. The father hired thirty new employees on his farm, most of them came from the closed slaughterhouse. He had them trained and introduced to the laws of the land. Soon he implemented more efficient methods of production, introduced new fertilizers and invented a machine which mechanized the collection of crops. The more money he earned, the more land he bought. Not so long ago he had been almost on the verge of a psychological breakdown and all of a sudden he was prosperous, busy and thrilled to bits. He was the lucky one.

There were many victims of the new situation: butchers, milkmen, and furriers lost their jobs; cooks, farmers and landowners had to adjust to the demands of the hungry nation and the products available for cooking. Those who couldn’t afford to buy the land or to buy enough food, considering its new high price, rented plots from people’s gardens, town’s parks and churches’ yards. Slowly and fearfully they planted onions, carrots, beetroots, lettuces, and tomatoes. Beans grown in K. were the pride and glory of a new nation thanks to the rich soil in the southern regions. When the season approached they planted apple, pear, peach and cherry trees. They expected grapes to grow up high, leeks to grow up long and pumpkins to grow up wide and plump. When all the petitions and offers of the butter, milk, meat and skins exchange were ultimately rejected by the neighboring nations, farmers turned to soy for the production of milk and pseudo-dairy products. It was hard but for a couple of years, no one died of hunger as no one was even close to holding a piece of meat in their hands.

The father was rich. With money came power. His only hope, worry, and relatives were his sons and soon enough he noticed that Melquiades was a shy and quiet boy with a nose in books and newspapers, while the firstborn Jacob was strong and athletic, and thus more willing to stay on a farm and continue his father’s vocation. He decided to send Melquiades to school to one of the foreign countries. Not to the neighbors of course. That out of simple K.’s pride was out of the question. Earth was full of countries and some were even happy to import K. beans via trains and ferries to their land 3000 kilometers away from K. Of course, it was illegal, of course, people were still afraid of the possible virus, which might kill their beloved pets and turn the country upside down. But the beans from the land touched by such a tragedy, beans so big and tasty, were worth a few trespasses of the law. The whole enterprise was also possible due to the money the father owned and country’s small but significant access to the sea which was too small to develop a fishing industry but big enough for shipment of those who wanted to leave temporarily. Or for ever. Some people emigrated since they neither could adjust to the new reality nor find a proper job. And like those wagons full of beans, Melquiades was to go at least for a couple of years to educate himself and find for himself a useful place in the world. Jacob was to stay. The population of K. was then exactly 20 million 2 thousand and 2 citizens.

Boys didn’t really like each other. The younger was sickly and shy, the older confident and cheerful. The younger was rather lanky and unattractive, the older so handsome that he had a girlfriend in every town within the reach of twenty kilometers. Not a girl, according to the father, but a friend. The old man believed it was innocent. When Melquiades’ father looked at his firstborn he felt parental warmth and pride. The boy was everything Melquiades’ father wanted to be when young. He strongly believed his son was as good as good was his appearance. What evil could be expected of a blue-eyed boy with light brown hair, dark complexion, and strong features, a boy so lovely from the day he was born, a boy loved by his parents unconditionally? They had expected that the next in line would have a tough example to follow. And from the day Melquiades was born, a boy not so appealing and attractive, he was fed, clothed, sheltered, and, apart from all the above, he was to be simply ignored.

At the end of the day, the choice was easy. The older was to be the sole heir to the fortune and the younger - at least educated, which for a boy, whose only talent was to get good marks at school, was quite desirable. The father didn’t really value education but his son convinced him that it is worth considering in the fast changing world. The younger boy felt limited in the thick walls of his house, dominated by his father's wish to prosper and his brother's desires for popularity. The father's choice concerning the future of his progeny was fair. And Melquiades’ father considered himself to be a man of justice.

In the sixth anniversary of K.’s tragedy, the night before Melquiades’ final departure Jacob was getting late for the farewell dinner the father had ordered beforehand. Finally, the boy appeared from the distance, jumped through the window, breathing heavily as if he had been running for the last half an hour. He didn’t want to enter through the front door and explain his deeds. Keeping a secret was better than lying. The window was often his friendly rescue in the times of frequent love escapades he was so fond of these days. He fell onto his bed, gasped and thrust a piece of paper onto the face of unsuspecting Melquiades. A small card fell on the floor and the younger brother made an effort to pick it up and examine it thoroughly.

‘I fucked her so hard. I touched this body. This body, Mel!’ he almost shouted at his brother, ‘This is how people should look like. She was perfect. Can you see that face? Can you see that waist? Can you see her teeth? All other milky cows should go hang themselves! No one but her should have the right to live on this planet.,’ he was so pleased with himself that he couldn’t have smiled wider.

Jacob was handsome. With minor imperfections: crooked teeth, some scars from running in the woods, petite asymmetries in the way he was talking and looking at things; he had his ways with girls. But what Melquiades knew and the father couldn't see was the fact that he wasn't perfect. That made Melquiades treat him as nothing special, even though everywhere he went the younger brother's inferiority was annoyingly highlighted.

‘I don’t look like that. Neither do you,’ Melquiades said suspiciously staring at the photograph of a naked woman who was, by the way, one of the first nude pictures he was ever to see. He liked to keep himself to himself and when it came to the opposite sex he was rather indifferent. In pretty boys like Jacob, he was less than interested.

Jacob stopped smiling and hid his teeth with his lips. He knew Melquiades was right. She was perfect. Jacob was less than perfect. He kept seeing boys far more attractive and he constantly compared himself to people better-off than he was, he measured parts of his body, he watched what he ate, he observed his muscles under strain, he took care of himself, bought lotions to make his skin softer and pastes to make his teeth whiter. He used cosmetics and perfumes. He didn’t want to be a simple rural boy. He wanted something more from life than land and soil. The father seemed to have a different plan for his future. But Jacob wasn’t going to spoil that evening with the dark thoughts of the generation gap and parental misunderstanding. He grabbed the photo from Melquiades and watched it closely with a visible pang of already forming nostalgia. Tomorrow he was to try his luck again.

The father, who was certain that his firstborn had spent time playing innocently with his friends, was setting the table. Due to the lack of the wife, who passed away when boys were little, he taught himself how to cook and how to take care of the house. This time, however, he ordered food from the local restaurant and, celebrating still quite recent financial comfort, he resigned from his basic home duties.

Boys were eating with appetite while discussing current affairs. What if some country let K. import some species of animals (at least chickens, at least pigs!) and start a home breed? What if neighbors changed their policy and if things went back to their initial state? Nothing in the future of K. was certain. Authorities were about to be changed, political system to be discussed in the face of economic turnover and a complete degradation of ruling classes was already taking place. Landowners and farmers were now the richest in the country and they wanted to have a vote of greater importance than penniless intellectuals, having no idea about farming. Things were about to change and everybody was looking forward to these changes. So were the boys. Jacob with mild curiosity, as he wasn’t really into politics, Melquiades with a small but significant fear.

The evening was coming to an end. Melquiades was falling asleep next to the plate of potatoes, Jacob was staring at the photograph of his recent quarry: her legs, her bottom and this shadowy part between her legs that made him uneasy. The father was drinking the one last bottle of wine from his first collection. He supplied the basement with dozens more but those seventeen were special and close to his heart. In K. it was the year 1925. Even the substandard wine of a recently poor man was of an excellent taste.

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